Francis Chan, Jonathan Edwards and Marrying Well

A couple years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Francis Chan speak at a marriage conference. It's always a little weird to be the single guy at a marriage conference, but I'd listen to Chan speak on just about anything. He said something in that message that has stayed with me. I've used it in almost every wedding I've officiated since. Chan painted a picture for the people there that day that I'd now like to paint for you.

Chan encouraged us to think about standing before Christ one day alongside our spouses (or future spouses). He asked us to imagine presenting our lives before Christ, "Lord, here is the wife you gave me. Throughout our marriage, I strived to encourage her to love you, to follow you, to please you…" Chan said a huge goal of our marriages should be to encourage our husband or wife to be a better disciple of Jesus. We should want our spouses to have a greater impact for Christ's kingdom because they were married to us.

At first, I thought Chan was merely bringing a little eternal perspective to the concept of marriage, but the more I've thought about it, he was doing far more. Chan was countering the way most of us view marriage. Today, most value marriage by the happiness it will provide. We assess a person's personality, beauty, education, etc. and ask, "Is this person right for me?"

Very few ask the kingdom questions before they marry. Will this marriage make me more effective in my work for Christ? Will this marriage make my spouse more effective for Christ? I believe this is often a missing question as we make our way to the altar. If you are not convinced the person you are marrying will serve Jesus better and help you serve Jesus better, you should not marry him/her.

When I think about someone who has modeled this well in looking for a spouse, I'm reminded of the great Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards. When people think of Edwards, they might think first of his fiery preaching. Let's be honest, sermons titled, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," "The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners" and "The Torments of Hell are Exceedingly Great" tend to set a preacher apart. Can you imagine your pastor preaching any of these? I certainly can't.

But Edwards was more than just a bold, 18th-century preacher. He also had a romantic side. From the same pen that produced theological classics scholars are still studying, came these words written about his future wife, Sarah Pierpont:

They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that almighty Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him—that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight forever. Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind, and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her actions; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she should offend this great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind; especially after those seasons in which this great God has manifested himself to her mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always of joy and pleasure; and no one knows for what. She loves to be alone, and to wander in the fields and on the mountains, and seems to have someone invisible always conversing with her.

Edwards' love for Sarah was compelling. They were both sincere lovers of God. It's plainly the main thing he loved about her. Her delight and joy in Christ was what he was attracted to most. In this short excerpt, Edwards mentions her desire to be with Christ, her desire to meditate on Christ and her desire to please Christ.

As we search for our future spouses, we ought not settle for someone who would consistently pull us away from God's call on our lives, but instead, look for the qualities like those Edwards saw in Sarah. This famous couple went on to marry and raise a family who loved and honored the Lord. In the same way, our aim should be that Christ will one day say well done not only to us, but also to the spouses He has entrusted to our care.

Comments

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1. Tami said the following at 11:45 AM on Jan 12:

That's beautiful. I want to strive to be like her.

2. Samantha Krieger said the following at 12:35 PM on Jan 12:

Great, great post. I couldn't agree more with your points. And it's really inspiring to read about Edwards and Sarah's relationship.

3. Erin A said the following at 1:57 PM on Jan 12:

The description of Sarah is beautiful, but that can be problematic, too, in my experience. I once loved a man who saw me this way, but when I disappointed him and hurt him unintentionally, as a human is bound to do to another, I was no longer the same woman as in the description.

Her holiness is admirable, but it is also not completely true of a sinful human, and it makes an idol of the person who is so highly esteemed. She cannot live up to that at all times, in all ways. Then what will a man less mature than Jonathan Edwards do? At the very least, renege his high opinion of her Godliness because of her inevitable, however infrequent, sins.

4. Greg said the following at 2:02 PM on Jan 12:

Amazing. Very poignant. It is a blessing to be reminded of these Truths. May all of us who are single and looking for marriage seek these qualities more than anything else.

5. Ben said the following at 2:45 PM on Jan 12:

Great post! But,I Chan isn't single. Married with five kids...I don't remember exactly when he got married, but he was married when he started planting his church in 1994.

6. Andrew said the following at 2:52 PM on Jan 12:

This post is really compelling (and true, in my opinion), but I wonder about the concepts of 'helping her to serve God more effectively' and 'enabling you to serve God more effectively.' Would someone mind trying to define/describe these concepts? I ask mainly in light of my inability to see how that would look, which is in turn a reflection of Paul's teaching on how singles are better able to serve Christ than married people because singles aren't devoted to caring for their spouse; they can focus on serving God.

7. Ria said the following at 4:35 PM on Jan 12:

This is lovely, Jonathan Edwards' words are somehow so cute!

A strong devotion to Christ and the church is what I first admired in my current boyfriend. He is becoming such a leader in bringing the Gospel into my life, my faith has really blossomed since meeting him! Yeah, we are sinners and we hurt each other with our selfishness, but we are like iron sharpening iron, walking hand-in-hand on this path towards heaven. It makes me think we just might be meant for each other^^

8. a regular nathan said the following at 11:33 PM on Jan 12:

Andrew @6, while Paul does say that singles are better able to serve Christ single-mindedly than married people, I think we should ask, 'Am I actually serving Christ better now as a single than if I were married?' I must admit that I, for one, am certainly not because I could easily do all the service with which I am currently involved even if I were married – I know married people who do the things I do. Honestly, to do what Paul is teaching – so that we as singles are focusing on the things of the Lord – would require our service being, at the 'secular' end of the spectrum, a second job (I wake up, go to work, leave work heading to my 'Serve-God' job, go home to bed, repeat) or, at the 'sacred' end, full-time ministry in such a manner that simultaneously being married would negatively impact the ministry. Paul recommends everyone stay single, but he says this specifically because it allows them to serve Christ in a manner without distraction. It should be noted that the Bible seems to assume marriage, with singleness generally, though obviously not always, being abnormal.

Part of Paul's recommendation is due to the cultural outlook at the time. He mentions 'the present distress'; and while we don't know specifically what the crisis is, I suspect persecution very well could have been on his mind. Is persecution easier to face as single or as married? I don't know since I don't think I've truly faced persecution (or marriage, for that matter), but I have a hard time imagining a married person not worrying about his/her spouse while either one of them were facing it. Of course, I have to be honest to the text here and say that Paul also recommends that married people don't seek 'unmarriage' for the same 'present distress' reason.

All this having been said, I'll see if I can suggest some practical ideas how spouses can help each other better serve God.

Paul, earlier in the discussion, recommended that we should marry if we are struggling with sexual temptation; and, as mentioned in my Sunday School class this last weekend, sexual temptation seems to be one of the most rampantly promoted sins in our culture and one of the most difficult to resist. It would surprise me if our sexuality does not reveal one of the ways in which a husband and wife could enable each other to serve God better – in our fulfilling the sexual desires of each other then we become less likely to sin sexually; and, with less sin, guilt and shame we can more readily, comfortably and effectively serve God in other ways too.

I also think it's possible to spur each other on in serving by capitalizing on the different interests or personalities we might have as a couple. For example, I might have never thought to serve in the nursery at church if it weren't for my [hypothetical] wife wanting to do so. She may have never thought about helping setup/tear down our mobile church every Sunday if it weren't for me doing so. She might not be allowed to serve at the local soup kitchen without being accompanied by a man because they had experienced some problems in the past because there weren't enough men also serving to help protect the women.

Then there is the work of sanctification that God can perform in us by pressing the lives of two sinners together forcing them to learn to love each other in the unconditional way God loves us, to sacrifice their desires for those of the other, to develop leadership and and nurturing skills. Now this family stuff may not sound at first glance like serving God, but think about it, is there really a better way to 'Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it'? (Prov 22:6)

I shall call it quits here, seeing how I should have been in bed two hours ago when I started reading on Boundless this evening, but I imagine you could use some of these ideas to come up with more.

(All Scripture in this post is quoted from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted – just to make everything official)

9. adeline said the following at 3:27 AM on Jan 13:

This is beautiful. Indeed any relationship in the Lord is meant to aspire us to be better people and to grow continuously in the faith.

10. K. Renee said the following at 8:21 PM on Jan 13:

Such a sweet reminder to strive for Godliness above all else. That is what the man God intends will love about me! "your beauty should not come from outward adornment..."